


The Day(ta) You Love

by kaijuvenom



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Data Has Android Emotions, Getting Together, M/M, Nonbinary Data, Other, So sue me, Takes Place During Season 7 Episode 1, and also some emotions from the chip, i bullshitted my way through the technobabble, i just wanted these gays to kiss, listen spot the cat is an important character, she deserves her own tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24873070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuvenom/pseuds/kaijuvenom
Summary: So see I was sitting here, minding my business, rewatching tng, when I was struck, like a prophet receiving visions from an angry god, with a great Need to write an alternate scene for that one part of season 7 episode 1 where Data tells Geordi they’re relieved the injuries they involuntarily inflicted on him weren’t permanent.
Relationships: Data/Geordi La Forge
Comments: 11
Kudos: 60





	The Day(ta) You Love

**Author's Note:**

> yells in gay android  
> try and get me now rick berman u shitfaced coward u couldnt catch me if u tried

_You oft’ proclaimed your heart could feel no love, and sought to keep your perfect brow untarnished by the sorrow. Protected are thy limbs, no fear of unseemly deeds grasp at thee. Can’t you pretend within thy breast a beat was ne’er misplaced and lost somewhere? Do you but jest, to say you never traced, with trembling fingertips, the image of a foreign shore, embarking on a pilgrimage to where none touched before?_

“You’re relieved?” Geordi asked, a smile forming on his face, and Data was unable to discern what was so amusing about their choice of words. They tilted their head.

“I believe _relieved_ would be the best way to describe my reaction upon seeing you well again, and that my harm towards you had no lasting damage.”

Geordi held up his hand, shaking his head as he sat on Data’s desk. They tilted their head the other way, as if that would clarify the situation. It did not. 

“ _Relief_ is an emotion,” Geordi said, and the implications clicked into place. They actually made a satisfying clicking noise somewhere inside of Data’s mind.

Data was reminded of the fact that Geordi noticed things. They should make a mental note of that, _Geordi notices things._

“Ah.” They frowned, looking down at their blank computer, not looking at anything in particular, they were analyzing their choice of words, wondering if perhaps there was a better way to describe what had happened when they had learned of Geordi’s safety. “Yes, it is, Geordi.” They looked back up. “I believe I have experienced an emotion.” 

“Wait, Data, you’re not saying- you’re saying you actually experienced a _feeling_? Just now, when I came in and told you this?” 

If Data were thinking any harder, they might’ve short-circuited something. “That is what I said. This is not the first time I have felt an emotion, Geordi. It is actually my third. The first being the anger I felt upon fighting that Borg, the second being pleasure upon seeing his lifeless corpse-”

“Data, those weren’t _your_ emotions, those were feelings Lore put in you to manipulate you. _You_ never felt pleasure or anger.”

They nodded, standing up and turning away from Geordi to stare at nothing on the shelf on the wall behind their desk. “Perhaps… perhaps when Lore accessed my positronic links to feed me those feelings, he activated something within my circuitry. I will run a full diagnostic check on myself to find the error.”

“Wait. Wait, Data, no, it isn’t an error.” Geordi laughed, putting his hands on Data’s shoulders and turning them back around to face him. “This is all you’ve ever wanted, isn’t it? To have feelings?”

Data looked down at the hands on their shoulders, then back up at Geordi, then back down again. They replayed the moment Geordi entered their quarters in their mind, and again, they were struck with that same _warmth_ , but Data was unsure if that was how one would describe what exactly a feeling was, considering they had nothing to base it on. They replayed it again, to make sure. The warmth was still there.

“You are correct, Geordi. I still plan on running a diagnostic check to be certain I am not malfunctioning in any way, and I would appreciate it if you, as soon as you have the time, would run a diagnostic check on me as well. But for the time being, I believe I have feelings for you, Geordi.”

Data might have the summation of human and alien knowledge, along with a flawless memory and the private journal entries and thoughts of over a thousand people in their mind, but that in no way meant they understood the meaning of what they had said, in terms of societal implications, that is. As far as Data was concerned, they had simply stated a fact. It was unequivocally true that they had experienced a feeling (possibly more, they would have to analyze the moment again) in regards to Geordi, so the phrase ‘I have feelings for you’, did not register as anything other than a factual statement in regards towards their current line of conversation. 

However, they certainly noticed the way Geordi reacted to that statement, as he sputtered for a second, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away briefly. Data blinked several times. 

“Have I said something wrong?”

“Well, Data, I’m sure you didn’t mean- well, that you didn’t intend to imply- never mind.” 

Somehow their memory had already managed to forget that little reminder--which was odd, considering Data was incapable of forgetting anything-- _Geordi notices things._ Things which Data had a habit of letting slip through the cracks. Such as the implications behind certain phrases. Don’t even get them _started_ on idioms, what was _easy as pie_ meant to mean anyway? As far as Data knew, pies were not considered easy to bake. But that was irrelevant (though it was worth noting, considering Data had exactly twenty-three different trains of thought occurring at one given time and this happened to be one of them), as they were now realizing that perhaps _I have feelings for you_ implied something which had a much deeper meaning than Data had realized when they’d said it. Their eyes twitched back and forth rapidly as they attempted to locate the societal implications of the phrase somewhere in their memory banks. 

“Ah,” they said as they located it, “To have feelings for; an English idiom, meaning to be emotionally or sexually attracted to.” Idioms would be Data’s downfall, they thought. They would never be able to grasp their full meaning. “I can understand how that may have caused you discomfort, however, that was not the intended meaning of my words, I apologize.” 

Geordi shook his head, letting out a soft chuckle. “No need to apologize, it just caught me off guard.” 

“Geordi,” Data said, a thoughtful tilt to their voice.

“Hm?”

“I believe I am experiencing another emotion. This one is odd. I do not think I like it.” They leaned forward suddenly, blinking rapidly. 

“Hey, hey, you okay? What happened?” Geordi placed his hands on Data’s shoulders, pushing them back up to look at their face.

“I feel…” they began, twitching as they attempted to locate the definition of whatever it was they were currently experiencing somewhere in their mind. “When I look at you, the feeling increases exponentially. I do not like it. Counselor Troi told me there is no such thing as a negative emotion, but… but I do not like this one,” they repeated.

“Hey, it’s okay. Is it sadness? Anger? What can I do to help?” Geordi stepped closer, one of his arms moving down to Data’s hand, squeezing it gently. 

When Geordi asked the question _what can I do to help,_ the feeling intensified to an extent that made Data fall forward, resting their head against Geordi’s chest. “I believe… what I am feeling can be described as ‘guilt’, Geordi.”

“Data…”

“I know what you will say, that I have nothing to feel guilty for because I was not in control of my actions and could have done nothing to stop it, but Geordi- Geordi, you are my best friend. I could have killed you. I was _going_ to kill you.” 

“No, you weren’t. _You_ weren’t going to kill me. That wasn’t you. I’m not going to blame you for something that you couldn’t have possibly had any say in.”

“But I should not have allowed--”

“There was nothing you could’ve done to stop it, you had no idea what Lore was doing. It isn’t your fault.” 

“Then why is it… that I still feel this way? When I look at you, it is this strong sensation, and I do not- I want it to go away, Geordi.” 

“I’m sorry, Data. I wish I knew how to help you. Do you want me to check out your systems? See if anything is malfunctioning?” Geordi asked, hesitantly bringing his hand up to brush through Data’s hair. 

“Yes. Please.”

Geordi nodded, leading Data over to their bed. “Here, sit down. Let’s take a look.” As Data sat down, Geordi knelt on the bed behind them, delicately opening one of the panels on the back of Data’s head. Bright, blinking lights and coils of wires and tubes in various effervescent colors blinked back at him and he frowned. Nothing looked wrong, or even any different than it normally did, but he checked it over a few times, carefully running his fingers across the circuits that he knew so well, before he shook his head, clicking the panel back into place and smoothing out Data’s hair. 

“Data, I don’t think I’ll find anything wrong. But I do have a theory as to what might’ve happened, if you want to hear it,” he offered, moving on Data’s bed so he was sitting next to them. 

They nodded silently for Geordi to go on, staring rather blankly ahead. 

“Well, you mentioned that maybe Lore feeding some of his emotions to you somehow affected you permanently, and I was thinking, when Doctor Soong created you, he had intentions of giving you emotions at some point, he made that emotion chip for you, so there must’ve been something in you that that emotion chip _connected_ to, and-”

“And when Lore gave me some of his emotions, it activated that part of me,” Data finished, nodding slowly. “The logic does follow.” They still didn’t seem satisfied, though, and that odd sort of sadness was still in their eyes, which made Geordi frown. He’d never seen Data like this, and he certainly didn’t enjoy it.

“But you don’t like it?” Geordi questioned, slowly reaching over and placing his hand over Data’s. 

“I do not know, Geordi,” Data said softly, turning their head and staring down at Geordi’s hand over theirs. “What do you do when you feel guilty? What should I do?”

They sounded so lost and confused, and it tugged at Geordi’s heartstrings unpleasantly. “It helps to just… sit with your feelings, for a while. You’ve already apologized to me--even though you didn’t need to--and you’ve more than made up for it, there isn’t much else you can do but get comfortable with the feeling. Understand it, you know? And know that it’s okay to feel that way, even if it isn’t logical, or very android-like of you.”

Data nodded, and, to Geordi’s surprise (but definitely not discomfort), they leaned to the side and rested their head on Geordi, closing their eyes. They turned their hand over and held Geordi’s, intertwining their fingers together. Geordi wrapped his other arm around Data’s side, holding him close.

“You’re gonna be fine. You’ll get used to… feeling.”

********

When Geordi woke up at some indeterminate time which was likely the next day, but he really couldn’t be sure, the first thing he noticed was that someone had taken his visor off. That caused him to panic for roughly one millisecond, before the visor was pressed into his hand gently by some unknown person who seemed to be hugging him from behind. 

The unknown person was quickly identified as Data when they spoke. “I removed it once I noticed you had fallen asleep, I am aware it causes you pain if you wear it for too long, especially during sleep.”

“Thanks, Data,” he said, adjusting his position on the bed and sitting up a little, feeling Data’s arms remove themselves from their comfortable place around Geordi, which he wanted to complain about but couldn’t quite figure out how to voice. He sighed, reaching up and clicking the visor into place. The first thing he saw upon putting it on was Data. And damn, that was a sight he could get used to waking up to; their pleasantly golden-hued aura next to him in bed. Before he could voice any of those thoughts, he cleared his throat and looked away, noticing belatedly that he was still in Data’s quarters. On Data’s bed. 

“Uh… how long…?”

“Exactly seven hours, thirty-four minutes, and twenty-nine seconds,” Data answered for him before he could awkwardly finish his question. 

“And you’ve been here the whole time?”

Data nodded in confirmation. “I was contemplating waking you up within the next ten minutes to feed Spot, but I found myself enjoying having you near me in this capacity, so I chose to postpone for as long as possible, assuming you would wake up in a brief amount of time.”

“Did you sleep at all?” He asked, hiding a yawn behind his hand.

“I do not require sleep, Geordi.”

“Right, right, right.” He paused, sitting up a little straighter as he watched Data get up and go about what was apparently a normal morning for them, getting Spot’s breakfast and talking to her as if she were a human person capable of intelligent response and not a demon cat sent from hell (Geordi still had yet to forgive her for breaking so many of his things and causing chaos in his life when he’d offered to look after her). He smiled to himself as he watched them, running a hand across his uniform in an attempt to smooth out some of the wrinkles. 

“Would you like coffee? Some form of breakfast?” Data asked suddenly, and it took Geordi a minute to realize they were talking to him. 

He turned to where they were standing, by the replicator, watching him expectantly. “Oh, um, just coffee. Thanks.”

Data nodded, looking like they were about to object, but apparently deciding against it. “Computer, one black coffee.” They took the cup off the replicator and blew on it, which was a gesture Geordi hadn’t expected to find so sweet. They handed the cup to him and Geordi only managed a very belated and quiet ‘thank you’, being far too distracted by thoughts of waking up next to Data every morning to give a more coherent response. 

Data sat next to him on the bed, and Geordi was resolutely staring at his coffee as he drank it, but he could feel their eyes on him. When he finally looked over, Data had a soft smile on their face that made Geordi want to melt. 

“What?” He asked, nudging them with his shoulder, a wide smile on his face.

“I do not know.” That warm feeling was back again, the one Data had experienced yesterday. They had made a very significant attempt when it came to understanding what this warm feeling was last night, and they had been left with several options. Once Geordi had woken up, however, the appropriate explanation seemed fairly obvious. “I do, however, have a theory, if you are interested in hearing it.”

Geordi nodded, carefully setting his coffee cup on Data’s nightstand before looking back at them. “Please.” 

“We have been friends for many years, of course. Now that I have these newfound emotions, I am realizing exactly how much you mean to me. As far as I am aware, I have been experiencing this… appreciation for you even before I realized my emotional capacity, it is just that I now have the ability to define it as what it is, or rather, what I believe it is.” 

Geordi nodded, waiting for Data to finish their explanation. “Yeah, and what is it?” He prompted after a moment of silence. 

“I love you, Geordi,” Data said finally, looking at him very carefully for any expression change.

“I love you too, Data, but-” Geordi began, but was interrupted.

“No, Geordi, you misunderstand me, I am-” they paused, their eyes twitching back and forth as they accessed the words they were trying to get out, “one moment,” they said, holding up their finger to prevent Geordi from speaking. “What I meant to say is that I am _in_ love with you, Geordi.” 

Geordi did not know how to answer that. So he stared. And continued to stare. As he tried to take that in. Staring at the angelic, golden hue in the form of a flawless creation that was Data. The same Data that he had had a crush on for the better part of seven years. The same Data who had just looked him right in the eye and stated with no uncertainty that they were in love with him. And he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to respond, what to do, and in fact he was fairly certain he had forgotten how to breathe. 

“Geordi?” Data asked, after exactly forty-seven seconds, which they decided was an appropriate amount of time to allow this ‘stunned silence’ (this was the most appropriate term they could come up with for such a prolonged break in the conversation) to go on for.

“Data, I-” He began, trying to figure out what to say. “Data, how do you- do you know that for sure? I mean-”

“Geordi, I had exactly seven hours, thirty-four minutes, and twenty-nine seconds to analyze this while you were asleep, and based off of my computations due to reading thirty-seven million, seven hundred twenty two thousand, five hundred thirty four romance novels, over one hundred and fifty million romantic poems of thirty-two distinct genres, and-”

“Okay, okay, okay, I get it, Data,” Geordi laughed, waving his hand. 

“And not to mention the warm feeling I get every time I see you,” Data finished, copying Geordi’s arm waving and eventually grabbing his arm gently, pulling it down and once again taking his hand and intertwining their fingers. “I did not understand it at first, and in fact, I did not even notice for many years, but now that I have noticed, I can now identify it as love. Of that, I am relatively certain.”

“How certain?” Geordi asked, the smile staying on his face.

“Roughly ninety-eight point seven percent certain.” 

“That’s… pretty certain.”

“For an android, that one point three percent is a rather large margin of error,” Data said, now avoiding eye contact with him. Although that implied Data had gone around asking every android how they felt on that particular matter--which, in a way, they supposed they had. They’d asked themself. And considering they were the only android, and hence the authority on the matter, they were allowed to say what was and wasn’t normal and expected in regards to android behavior.

“It isn’t for a human.”’

Geordi’s other hand was on their face now, touching their cheek and moving down, running his fingers along the line of their jaw. They had touched before, they touched each other all the time, primarily because Data had found a long time ago how much they enjoyed being touched. No one at any of their previous assignments had ever even bothered to treat them as sentient, much less get to know Data well enough to befriend them. But that was irrelevant, because although Data and Geordi touched often, they had never touched each other like this.

Data decided they liked it. Of course they’d been touched like this before, only once, mind you, but this was different, as Data was relatively certain that this time neither they nor Geordi were under the influence of an alien disease affecting their judgement and behavior. 

“Geordi…” they began, and it was at that point that they realized exactly how close they were to each other. “I would like to kiss you.”

“I’d like to kiss you, Data,” he said softly, and his hand moved to the back of Data’s neck. They met each other in the middle, their lips finding each other and smoothly fitting together, and this was the first time Data had ever kissed someone and actually enjoyed it. And had some semblance of an idea of what they should be doing. It felt right, like it was something that Data had been programmed to do, and maybe they had been, somehow, they’d been made for this, to feel love and to be loved in the most human way they’d never thought would be possible.

_The most deluded eyes could see within you harbor a store more rich than most should be in every sense’s flame. Thou dost feel, I know it well, and thou dost weep, I’ll swear. But dost thou love--I’ll live to tell, if you would only dare. Remember, and tell me, the day you learn of love._

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/kaijuvenom)  
> also [tumblr](https://kaijuvenom.tumblr.com/)


End file.
